'Mario,' 'Zelda' creator says give the Wii U time

Larry Frum of CNN writes, "The Nintendo Wii U has seen its star dim somewhat since its launch in November 2012. Worldwide sales numbers for the console have been disappointing and some gamers have complained that the number of desirable games for the system hasn't grown quickly enough.

However, the man who brought to life Nintendo legends like Mario, Link and Donkey Kong is preaching patience with the console, saying the Wii U, with its touchscreen controller that augments big-screen play, is so different that it will take time for people to understand its real value."
(Industry, Nintendo, Wii U)

The thing is the Wii U did go through it's first Christmas and the sales were average at best. Nintendo need to give the Wii U an OFFICIAL price drop for the sales to pick up then they can go from there. ;)

Give the Wii U time? I guess but how will Nintendo answer to PS4 and the 720? Much stronger hardware attracts third party for ambitious projects and next gen AAA's. The only thing I can see Nintendo accomplishing is better looking ports on this gen.

btw The same thing happened with the Wii this gen, majority of Pubs went with Sony and MS consoles. A large amount of Devs and pubs right now, are announcing they are skipping on the U. EA, Epic.

Like I said before, Nintendo's E3 will be very interesting regarding, well, everything.

Sorry for being largely negative but its a huge concern that I have. "Give The Wii U Time" The time needs to be very very soon.

Personally I think the PS Vita truly just needs a price cut right now in North America and Europe to get sales with ads obviously because we all know Sony hasn't done well in the ad space without Kevin Butler. Games aren't its main problem (A problem though). While the Wii U just needs the 3rd Party Support and Games. The price I think is perfectly fine for it not even being a year old yet. I mean it would help but I am not going to buy a Wii U until I am convinced it will be supported by 3rd Parties and not just Nintendo. I hope for the best for both systems. I want both but until the games come to the Wii U and the price drop of the PlayStation Vita happen I am going to hold back on them.

Okay. But you gotta give me games. Xenoblade 2's a good start, but you still gotta deliver it - and its got no release date in Japan already.

Edit: Not trying to be rude or implying impatience, just saying what I've seen and what I want.

And what I've seen and what I want looks like Monster Hunter with mechs where the mechs can lob off monster parts. Slap something like that on the PS4 - make it so that social, multiplayer aspects aren't deeply involved - and that's good too.

I think that's the problem Nintendo has right now. They really can't just snap their fingers and make games finished, even though right now they sort of need to to have something, anything on the market.

Nintendo thought third-parties were going to support the Wii U and the company wouldn't need to develop so many games at first. Iwata was once again wrong in his assumption, unbelievably.

But they could co-ordinate software development in such a fashion that Wii U buyers get some games every now and then. Then again, no one could have predicted that Lego City Undercover wouldn't be the best game ever. It looked fantastic.

@Phil32 Note: "Not the best game ever". I'm sure it's fun, but it hasn't taken the role as game of the year contending system seller as the Wii U could have needed. That it's your favourite Wii U game is sort of adding to my point.

Nintendo announced the Wii U almost 2 years ago. They didn't have to snap, but they should have been more prepared than they are. Right now, the lack of any sufficient game library is the only disappointment i have with the system. Nintendo, and it's 3rd party support, had plenty of time to make games for the system. At this point in time we shouldn't be hearing "They're coming, just wait you'll see", we should be hearing "And this is what we have coming out after all the games being released this year".

So I guess my question is...how long should we give them? The launch line up was good, but what now? A bunch of games which may or may not be released this year? How many titles have already been delayed? Right now I have no expectations of Nintendo, and while I like my Wii U, I feel I may have jumped the gun on supporting them so readily and early with this system.

I do agree though that Lego City is a lot of fun, and while the games are sparse, there are some decent titles worth picking up should one get the system. It is rather hard to defend the lack of software outside that though.

Have you played the first Xenoblade? Because if you did, you'd know it really doesn't play like Monster Hunter, and it's very likely that Monolith's new game will play more like Xenoblade than Monster Hunter.

Who came first in the last race? Was it the 360 or the PS3? Oh wait, they came equal last to the clearly inferior wii in sales figures. Of course, the technically superior Atari Lynx and Sega GameGear won against the monocolour Gameboy, just as the PSP and Vita beat the inferior DS and 3DS. Of course they didnt, but people do like to delude themselves. Personally I couldn't care less as I've owned or still own all of them and can name a dozen games on each that I'm glad to have played. So who cares about numbers, really? It's the games that matter and I'll take quality over quantity anytime.

Lol! You dream! e3 is coming and Ninty is bringing pain for you and boundless joy for us Wii U owners. Mario Kart U. Mario Kart Wii sold over sixty million copies that's more than six times the amount of copies SCEA sold of Gran Tourismo 5. If history holds half true that's thirty million copies an god knows how much hardware. Super Smash Bros. U. Might "Move" some hardware! Lol "might"! We'll probably get a Zelda U trailer. Retro studios hopefully will be ready to show the super secret software they been workin on. Mario 3d. If Nintendo released a sequel to Super Mario 64 they'd be back in the money printing businness pronto! I'm secretly hoping for a new F zero. The Wii U is going to win this eighth generation of home video game consoles. Here's how. 1. Nintendo is the best software developer in the world. 2. Their hardware is indestructable. 3. The people that populate Miiverse to me are the kindest, nicest, most fun loving people on the face of the planet and are incredibly talented and artistic. 4. The Wii U will be the least powerful console. 5. Lateral thinking with withered technology!
All we have to do is wait for amazing software. It takes longer to make amazing gorgeous games than it takes to make garbage. I'll wait to play the best software on earth.

There are only the next consoles from Sony and Microsoft at this point. The 8th gen is already under way now people whether you like it or not, so stop trying to take the WiiU out of the equation... Of course Nintendo isn't allowed to have flaws ,they are Nintendo! lol But yeah people are going a little nuts about what Sony's PS4 is going to do to the competition. If the PS3 couldn't bury the Wii and that wasn't even HD and Microsoft isn't going to give Sony another hardware failure opportunity like the RRoD again so things are going to be alot different this round. I guarantee after E3 people won't be running around praising the PS4 as much when everybody's hands have been shown at the event. I just hate unnecessary hype and Sony is gonna eat this whole PS4 has supercharged PC technology B.S.! Developers are already coming out and making excuses for why this game or that one won't be running at 1080p or 60fps. So its not looking so Supercharged now is it?

It's already established the Wiiu is no Wii, not that it has to be, but still.

As for Xbox 720, if going by the rumors, I don't think I would let Microsoft pay me to walk out the store with one. My mind isn't made up on that yet but the consensus of rumors say they're going to look to burn me on that console in any way possible, and that's no exaggeration. Blocking of used games, mandatory kinect, always on DRM, you name it, if half of the rumors come to be true I won't be going ANYWHERE near that thing.

Right now the Steambox seems more appealing and I know precisely nothing about their current plans. Now I wonder if Microsoft's way of appealing with their reveal is to lead us on with the worst expectations so whatever they show couldn't possibly be as dissapointing as we expect. That's why I'm saving my final judgement.

I agree, I don't know where people get this notion that the 3ds doesn't have a variety of games or its going through a drought. Even on the latest episode of Invisible Walls, they mentioned that both the Vita and 3ds should be in their prime software wise right now. I don't know about the Vita, but the 3ds is kicking A$$ when it comes to games right now and the rest of 2013 is just going to get more hysterical by E3... I don't even know how Nintendo is going to find the time to unveil everything about the upcoming WiiU games and still take care of their 3ds business at the same time. They must be planning one massive Nintendo Direct right before E3 or something for certain.

Both the 3DS and Vita line up for the rest of the year(and up to this point) is pretty damn good. Quite honestly if all you had was the 2 mobiles you would have more games than you'd have time to play.

Lol PS vita has better games on it than a pseudo debunked next gen console so there is a difference. I don't care about who likes me or being politically correct on this site, %uck Nintendo and its rehashed IPS and no innovation in software since like 1993. I rather have innovative software than a gimmick controv scheme any time of day. They lie about hardware and keep specs hushs hush because theybknow digital foundry and neo GAF is right n in saying its current gen. Only idiots and dreamers think otherwise. Stop lubing your %ss for Nintendo and speak up,

Wow. So much anger and hate directed at a company that has done you no personal harm. Or did Miyamoto run over your dog?

Mate you need to increase the dose or stop what you're smoking and chill out a bit before you wind up doing something really stupid. You don't want to end up going Lee Harvey Oswald on Mr Iwata or Mark David Chapman on Shigeru, now do you?

LOL Nintendo couldn't care less about the opinions of people like you who have never owned and never will own their products.

That said, I do wish in the future that they don't gimp their consoles in terms of specs. The WiiU for instance, was purportedly more powerful in the original devkits before Nintendo decided to weaken it.

I actually don't think that was the case... If you go back to what reports said that early WiiU Devkits were using a down clocked Radeon 4850 and then when version 4 of the devkit came out right before CES 2012. All the developers that had received the kit at the show were raving about the unexpected power boost the new version had brought. Then comes the final devkit right before E3 2012, that allowed developers full access to the WiiU's power. Which must have been significant for Retro Studios to pull their game from the unveiling. The fact of the matter is that Nintendo unlike what they did with the GC by giving theoretical capabilities of the systems power. They haven't mentioned a word to developers about how many shaders it has, or the number of texture units, or the memory bandwidth of the system. So developers are finding out on their own what the system can do pretty much and as someone else mentioned, most of the current graphic engines are modified with 360&PS3 in mind not WiiU. But the fact that CryEngine3 struggles on the 360&PS3, but yet Crytek says the engine runs beautifully on the WiiU should answer people's fears about the system.

People who say rehashes their IPs with no innovation are just downright trolling. Nintendo are the only company that innovates! D-pad, Analogue stick, diamond buttons, motion controls all of these things Nintendo made successful. What exactly has sony done since they've entered the market that was so innovative? All I can think of are the dual analogue sticks. Sony always play it safe with just updated graphics. People are getting bored of updated graphics and want new experiences. Sooner or later it's going to bite then in the ass.

I like to visit the past, you see, here in the future there are no quibbles about the success or the superiority of next gen consoles, because everything has achieved Vmax, all of them are everything, and everything is nothing.

Out of all the E3's for Nintendo I believe this one could very well be the most important for the gaming giant. They'll face incredibly stiff competition from Microsoft and Sony as they show off their new powerful hardware and exclusive games.

If Nintendo can get going with some solid marketing and start producing more first party titles much faster they can still do very well with the Wii U. 3rd party support is very important but in the end, people buy Nintendo systems for Nintendo games.

I don't mind giving it time if it will pay off in the end. However I wish I was not a day one purchaser. Nintendo was not ready for this launch, and Best Buy and Future Shop and Costco up here in Canada have had great deals on the system for much less then the 349.99 I spent for the Deluxe at launch. This is the second time this has happened to me I also was a 3DS day one guy who got screwed when Nintendo dropped the price on that thing 3 months in. I've been loyal to them since and first played Nintendo on the Coleco Vision but this will be the last day 1 Nintendo system for me.

It's def not about the hardware it's about the games. If you go to a store and game system A has 200 great quality games and console B has 5 games that are great as well. Game console A is getting 20 more games that are great between now and a year and console b is getting 5 more games in that similar span of time. You as a consumer have been told that system b isn't getting this game in the near future if at all would you spend your money on system b even if the hardware was better?

The answer for me is no. Now here is the real talk no chaser will manufacturers continue to pull a gearbox on us. Show us one thing and do another because all the sizzle reels and promised games that we see in then presentations most of them are tech demo's that either don't come out or don't come out when promised so we get to look forward to ports.

My thoughts are, with the 3DS doing really well now. Why would Nintendo not have put a little more focus on Wii U before its release. Like maybe instead of making Luigi's Mansion 2 for 3DS, developing it for Wii U first as a launch window title. Luigi is a system seller (Not for all) at least it would have helped. I already have Wii U, and would gladly have picked Luigi's Mansion up for it. I really thought the first one was a blast.

i know for a fact some fantastic games will come to wii u eventually.. Im being as patient as possible but as an early adopter, i must say im pissed off i cant play anything i want to play on that thing & that its collecting dust.. I shouldve waited to buy it after it had around 5 games i wanted to play out already... It was my own fault for buying at launch but i honestly thought that rayman wouldve been out by now as well as bayonetta 2 around the corner... I know i wont trust anything nintendo says anymore until i see it on shelves..